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Category: General

So my manager’s wife got him a Wii for Valentine’s day. Some reason Toy-R-Us shipped her 2 units, unfortunately she paid for both, but fortnately for me I got a Wii today. Melanie and I played for 1 hour 32 min. and man was it fun. We just tried out Wii Sports and it definitely get’s your energy level up.

Melanie’s favorite game is the bowling, she one me the first round. But she’s pretty crazy with boxing, knocked 2 guys out in the first round. As it’s not HD and doesn’t have the intense graphic, the games are incredibly fun. If you get a chance to pick one up, I highly recommend it, you’ll also find it hard to find the Wii-mote and Nunchuck. Fortunately I found the Wii-mote, but I’m stil on the hunt for a Nunchuck.

Below is a picture of our Wii. I also added a link to all the pictures and the “Mii” characters Melanie and I made of ourselves.

So Melanie and I had one of our first free weekends in quite some time. I decided I wanted to do something fun Saturday, so on Saturday we started brain storming on what to do. I did some googling and came across tours a the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, CA. We ended up going to Jelly Belly and went on the 40 min. tour. Unfortunately the production is closed on weekends, but it was still fun. I hear it’s even funner during the production, according to my cousin Yoli.

After Jelly Belly, we decided to get really full and get some delicious cuts of Steak at the Cattleman’s in Dixon, after seeing the bar napkin, we found out there are also Cattleman’s in Livermore and Newark, so we’ll have to make a visit to our closer restaurant soon.

Today we had 2 Super Bowl bashes to attend. The first was at the Chan’s, we were there for the first half and had some yummy Zippy’s Chili from Hawaii and homemade ice cream. Then we went for the second half to my Uncle Petong’s place where we had Steak, Lechon, Pancit, Chili, and Auntie Mely’s desserts. This year was definitely for the food and not the game. Click on the links below to see the pictures.

So this week I decided to install Windows Vista to see what it’s all about, being the public release is in 6 days (1/30). So what do I think about Vista? I don’t think it’s compelling enough to upgrade from Windows XP. I mean it’s all pretty and stuff… It’s got a lot of Mac like features, as well as some features I’ve seen in some Linux distributions, but does it really make me jump ship from XP? I think not! Especially if I had to pay retail price for it.

One of the biggest features is the Aero display, it makes these really nice looking translucent windows and does this 3D view, which is all pretty and I do like it, but it’s not a must-have for me. It is nice to be able to choose between the windows I have open.

The security seem pretty locked down, I had some issues with my IT group that we had to create a special account for me to manage some of the power features I need, luckily the IT guys are really cool and worked with me, since I think I’m the only one using Vista at the company. I’m sure hackers will still figure a way to compromise this OS, but at least Microsoft keeps trying to improve security.

So my final thoughts? It’s a nice upgrade, but I doubt I’d pay more that $75 to upgrade and that would be pushing it. Knowing most of my friends, it’ll probably take them 2 years to even make the jump. But if you want to check the UI is a nice clean upgrade. Keep in mind though, you’ll need a pretty powerful system to use this OS, I’m running the latest Intel Duo 2 processor and 1 GB of RAM and it’s not as fast as XP, but I can live with it! Check out the pictures below of my Vista desktop’s.

So I had two post-holiday parties this week. It started at Zazzle on Thursday, where I didn’t pace myself too well and ended up leaving during the second hour before dinner (yes, I got sick). The other party was at the Chen’s and it was great to see everyone and the Chen’s re-model as well as their beautiful son. You can check out the by clicking below…

So this is my first blog of the New Year, so let me start off by saying Happy 2007 to everyone out there! Wednesday I started my New Job at Zazzle.com and I’m very happy about taking this opportunity. The whole company and environment makes coming to work really enjoyable.

I got initiated with 3 other newbees on Thursday, we got pulled in saying we had to make a lunch speech, then when we came out, we got blasted with silly string. I felt like I was under Spiderman’s web with all the silly string I was under after everyone was done spraying. I knew right then, this would be a great company to work for.

If you’re ever interested in making products with your pictures or want to order some cool products with pictures from companies like Disney, Lucas Arts (Star Wars), Marvel comics, Library of Congress, etc… We have a lot of products, I saw a really cool poster size image of a Fantastic Four comic book cover framed and matted the other day, as well as some pretty cool t-shirts, anyways, you should check it out. We also have this “MySpace” type feature, so you can see all the product I create at “My Zazzle” page:

As for Melanie and I. Our New Year was spent with my cousin’s family Don, Lisa, Natalie, and Jake. I really enjoyed being with them for 4 days, too bad I got sick the first 2 days due to some bad oysters I ate with my friend Schalky the day before we left. Check out the pics:

Holiday’s were a little less hectic then the previous years. Unfortunately my Grandma is a little weaker these days and can’t really travel, she’s going to be 96 in March. Since she can’t travel, Melanie and I only had to go to her family and my mom’s for the holidays. Usually we also have to go to the Mari’s get-together, which we missed, but it was definitely more relaxing since we didn’t drive so much.

Melanie and I went to Whistler, British Columbia just prior to Thanksgiving were we did some snowmobiling and I did my first bungee jump. We’re planning to go to Disney world in Florida in Feb, so I’m excited about our next trip.
All-in-all we had a great Holiday and I had a really long vacation from Dec. 13 – Jan. 03. I’ve been slowly re-posting pictures to our Galley site, so if you have a chance check out our pictures. All of the pictures are there from the holidays.

Below I also added a video page (new) and inlcuded a link to our first yearly newsletter. The web version of the newsletter is edited, vs the one we e-mailed out. The difference is the web version doesn’t include our contact inf (due to privacy), but if we missed you and want the version we e-mail, please click the e-mail us link below.

Well, this past month was a little crazy. Pretty much I went to China, then a little after I got back from China I got the complete blind-sided, pull you into a conference room talk of I was being let go from my current company Centrify. I don’t know all the details, but I hope them the best, since I have a lot of close friends I made there still!

Based on me getting laid-off, of course I started job hunting and I’ve already landed at a great company working with my close friend Steve Schalkhauser. The company is FilmLoop and it’s a really cool company to work for, reminds me of my Simple Star days without the commute.

I’m excited about being back in the consumer software space, and for those of you who aren’t aware, my previous company did software for networking big companies so not much fun there, other than learning a bunch.

So here’s some pictures of the new gig, we’re in Palo Alto and I commute with Melanie everyday, kind of convenient…

So hopefully next month isn’t as exciting and I’m more stable. Don’t foget to click on the FilmLoops I’ve made below.

Well I’m on my 5th day in Hong Kong/China and tonight was the first night I went to a restaurant to eat by myself. I hate eating at restaurants by myself, it’s always really awkward and something I hate about travelling on business. I usually like eating at the bar vs. a table, but I’ve noticed out here in China most of the restaurants don’t have bar seating.

Tonight I was eating at “The Spaghetti House”, pretty generic pasta, almost like the Olive Garden and those of you that know me know how much I love that restaurant, NOT! But they do have one killer dessert which is a caramel sago red bean tapioca dessert, think of it as a tapioca creme brulee and it’s yummy!

On the good side this whole week I had some really good company to eat with, Monday – Kang and his wife (QA engineer in China), Tuesday – Actually fell asleep, so I had room service brought it, Wednesday with the WeSoft Hong Kong team, Johnson (nickname Big Johnson) and Victor took me out to the Jockey club and we were joined with Charlie, Harvey, and Vicky, man is that a plush club! I had great drink, food, and a cuban cohiba cigar.

I’ve uploaded some pics from this trip, if you want to check them out, click on the link below

So I’m back in Hong Kong/China for 11 days, at least things are more familiar for me this time around. I decided to stay in TST or Tsim Sha Tsui versus Shatin, the city I stayed in the last time I was here. It’s more downtown/city here and not so suburbia like Shatin. It’s the second time at this hotel (Renaissance Kowloon Hotel) since Melanie and I stayed here when she flew out. It’s located in a great location and only adds 15 min. extra to my train ride. The room price was the same as Shatin, but I was only suppose to get a double bed, where as Shatin I got a Queen bed. To my surprise when I checked in I was upgraded to what they call a “Superior Suite”, so I have a comfy King bed to kick it on. Anyways, I’m heading to bed since I have to catch the train to China tomorrow and it’s already 11 pm.

So I think our WordPress Blog and picture Gallery have successfully been moved. You should now be viewing our website on the new Siphon Systems web hosting business. We’re still working out the details on our Siphon Systems ISP project, but if you have friends or relatives looking for a web hosting company, look us up at: